Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Goal Setting - The All Important Plan

he concept of writing down what you want to achieve is in itself
a good pursuit. It helps you to plan your day and organise your time, and also
provides clear direction for what tasks you should be doing. However, to be
effective, goal setting needs to go beyond just setting vague statements for
the future. A clear plan needs to be put in place for how the goal will
actually be achieved. More on this below.

The problem that many people face with goal setting is that
their goals are really just ideals of what they want to achieve. A sound path
to get there is often over looked. For example, having a goal that you want to
"have a net worth of $10 million dollars by then end of 2012" is
something to strive for. However, unless you have a plan for how you are going
to make this happen, you will most likely (unless you win lotto or something
along those lines) fail.

To develop a plan you first need to work out what it will take
to achieve your goal. A good way to start is to look a several different
options and alternatives for how the goal could be achieved. Once you start
looking at the options you will very quickly be able to see what each option
would involve and which would be the most feasible. Select the most feasible
and logical option.

Once you have an option, you need to break the option down into
specific tasks that are required to be undertaken. At this point it is also
beneficial to chat to a mentor or someone with experience in the area that your
goal relates to. This will help you avoid making large mistakes and will ensure
that you are on the right track. Finally, develop up a task and project time
line with time estimates.

While the above may seem like a lot of work (and it is) it will
greatly increase your chances of achieving the goal. To make a comparison, when
building a grand 50 storey building, the majority of the work goes into the
planning and development before the construction. The same principal applies to
goal setting.

As you can see from above the process of goal setting requires
more than just setting vague goals or ideals that you want to achieve. To be
successful you must develop up a strong goal setting plan, speak to experts and
ascertain how long each task will take. Only when you do this, are you truly an
active goal setter. Here's to your success.

If you want to learn how to finally achieve your goals, then
check out our free goal setting e-book atGoals
Setting

Rusty O'Connor has been an avid goal setter for the past 10 years
and has written numerous goal setting and time management articles and has
provided in-depth advice to numerous clients. Outside of goal setting and time
management, Rusty enjoys Internet Marketing, rock climbing, surfing and
traveling. Rusty is married with four young children and currently lives as an
expat in the Middle East.